The object of this invention is to provide high speed, long range cargo ship or cargo submarine featuring a multihull and reduced hydrodynamic resistance used for any cargo (including sensitive cargos like live stocks, food, flammable chemicals etc.), passenger, vehicle, military transport and for evacuation rescue purposes under extreme weather and sea conditions both at sea, rivers, shallow waters, trans-oceanic routes, arctic ice conditions as manned or unmanned (known as USV/AUV) or semi-autonomous. More specifically, the invention relates to an arrangement as disclosed in the preamble of independent claim 1.
As the global trade increases, the number of containers is increasing to higher levels which addresses to bigger port capacities, higher infrastructure investments and increasing need for ultra large cargo ships in order to achieve lower transport costs per unit cargo volume.
Larger container ships under strict environmental emission standards mean lower speeds and longer transport periods.
In case of lack of number of container per vessel; results higher unit transport cost per container (division of total ship operating costs to container number transported per shipment). There is always a risk for lack of cargo from a port within the fluctuation of economic and trade from that port or country to another. Not all the containers from one port to final destination are allocated at all times, the container ships have to call at various ports on the route for unloading and loading to final destination point; this is the need to use the full capacity of the ship at high efficiency.
Multi-stop routes create delays and generally extends transport times due to unexpected waiting especially when the arrival port is too busy and/or due to bad weather conditions. These delays create extra costs to ship operators. Longer transport times mean slower trade and delayed cash flow between traders and economies.
For the transport of food and medical and pharmaceutical goods, longer transport times have a negative effect on freshness and shelf life. In today's global supply regime, faster transport periods are needed between supply sources and their consumption locations. Air transport is an alternate for faster and safer transport but it is too expensive, and have weight limitations, and have cargo type restrictions (for example cannot carry bulk size of live stocks or flammable products) and effected from weather conditions and needs qualified personnel for aircraft operation and have higher investment return rates.
Urban transport volume is increasing especially for cross continents travel and yields to bigger aircraft and higher aircraft numbers to be given into service. This means higher emissions due to travel number and higher fuel costs due to increasing demands despite the efforts for reducing the unit carbon emission values per passenger per flight miles. Many successful inventions and modifications have been done in aircraft industry in order to reduce emissions and fuel costs and as well as unit passenger travel costs. On the other hand mid-range sea transport seems more essential between continents where aircraft operation costs are higher. The invention offers high speed sub-sea passenger transport between continents faster than conventional ships even under extreme sea and weather conditions. The invention also offers touristic potential to economies which it can travel people to adventurous places with a different ways of transport.
On the other hand, despite the early prior arts of submarines, long range high payload submarines are only available for military purposes around the World. Besides there have been several attempts for high speed ekranoplanes and sea planes which were limited to high operational costs and high design complexity. Other attempts were the nuclear powered cargo ships to be sailed via arctic routes in order to reduce the transport times.
Heavy weather and sea conditions are also a great barrier in front of the shipping. Current world trade is now asking and being more demanding for uninterrupted service levels. The only and the best way to ensure this, is to cruise underwater and even keeping the loading and unloading underwater.
The invention provides unmanned cruise option that yields lower transport costs, longer underwater ranges even under arctic and extreme weather conditions without any service interruption and lack of efficiency.
Sea route safety is one of the major concerns that limit to open new sea routes due to piracy attacks and kidnapping especially around Africa, India and Persian Gulf and nearby countries which are politically instable or have lack of central authority. The combination of sub-sea cruise at high speed enables safer cruise and evasive maneuverability against attacks.
New mineral and fuel resources and their routes, for example Greenland region, and North Sea, requires new sea routes and safer supply and maintenance vessels due the extreme environment operating conditions. Current sea vessels, prior arts have limited operations or service options under these circumstances. Prior arts offer less stability and sea keeping capability under extreme environments such as windstorms, hurricanes, arctic winter conditions etc.
The possibility of sea accidents, injuries are so likely under conditions above mentioned. The rescue vessels with prior arts together with aircrafts and helicopters offer limited options and sometimes impossible to reach to the wreckage area in order to rescue the survivors. The invention offers high stability and much reliable operation options.
Hull damage is a major concern especially in high traffic sea zones when collusion conflict probabilities are with significant numbers. The double hull, and multihull solutions are still underway in research and development in marine industry.
The oil and chemical spills is one of the major risks for environment. These incidents generally occur under bad weather or low visibility conditions due to collusion with another vessel or object. Immediate arrival to the incident area is always important and prior arts are offering very slow rate of reaction. An effective collection and the cleaning of the spilled material is a major issue and current systems only offers a surrounding sponge or similar systems in order to limit the spillage are. The invention provides a faster arrival option to the incident area and further comprising an oil spill arrangement that enables suction from the bottom and leads to increase the efficiency of the spill elimination process throughout the surface.
On the other hand, the super sea structures are on the way for building new living areas on or below the sea level. These structures will need consistent way of logistics. The invention provides necessary reliable way of transport from or to those structures mostly independent or less effected from weather and sea conditions in order to provide consistent supply and logistics. This option enables marine and military transport to strategic sub-sea bases and oceanic research facilities.
Most of the submarine designs have higher draught levels above 10 meters which are limiting cruising at shallow water bodies, leads high sonar signature from fore and side reflections.